


el botánico

by renjaune



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:49:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26277442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renjaune/pseuds/renjaune
Summary: "I don't know if it has ever happened to youbut the Botanical Garden has always hada pleasant propensity for dreams,for insects climb up your legsand melancholy descends down your armsuntil you close your fist and trap it."- To the left of the Oak Tree, Mario Benedetti.
Relationships: Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Lee Taeyong
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	el botánico

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in a month or so, but I read my favorite poem today, and couldn't help but write this. As this is based on a poem, there are verses all over it. Here's a [link](https://allpoetry.com/poem/5923619-A-la-Izquierda-del-Roble---To-the-Left-of-the-Oak-Tree-From-Spani-by-Anon2) to a translation so you can see which ones were used. 
> 
> I have never written something this short before and that makes me kind of insecure lol, but I can't do much about it as making it longer wouldn't make it better. 
> 
> I never thought I was going to write dotae, but here I am, posting this, so I hope you like it.

The days had started to get warmer but they were never warm enough., That was why he didn’t forget to bring a jacket. He had been learning to bring everything he would need, as he was now the one in charge of his own well being. It was sad, yes, but it was also what people did once they got older: they would start taking responsibility for themselves and start to care after themselves to avoid getting a cold and ending up asking for meds at the nearest hospital. 

He hadn’t been there for long, neither in this new city nor in this particular garden. He changed his favorite to try to clear his mind, but it didn't matter how much he tried, it was always the same thing on his mind.

_ Wow, Taeyong, you’re getting smarter,  _ he said to himself once he reached the entry to this botanical garden. He had been having to remember to bring coins, as the only way to get past the gate and pay the fee was by using them. It wasn’t the usual, for him to be carrying them,but as he had been going there alone, he started to fill his pockets with cash to always be able to cross the gates. 

The street wasn’t that empty that day, it was a school day and it was about to be filled by kids coming out of the nearest school. He took a deep breath and looked at the Quart Towers at the end of the street. It always amazed him how they could be there, standing together, after all those years, a small portion of history in the middle of this chaos that was now life. 

And it wasn’t like his life was a chaos; actually, it was totally the opposite. That was why he liked the garden that much:such a calm place that allowed him to be with his thoughts for a little bit, to think about anything but himself. 

He never thought about himself, and he wasn’t doing that in the garden, but he was trying to convince himself that was what he was doing.  _ Fake it until you make it,  _ he said every time he crossed those gates. At this point, he didn’t know if they were leading him to heaven or to hell. 

The little machine that gave him the pass was as cold as if it was December, Taeyong’s fingers  were trembling as he put on the last  coin  and the machine gave him his ticket for the day. He took it and  put it on the back of his phone. It was getting crowded, he should  had taken some off to leave space for the new ones, but he didn’t want to. Maybe he could put some of the oldest ones on that small pocket  at the front of his jacket, the one near his heart, it was always so empty, it might helped to fill it up. 

The gardens were always empty during that time of the year, and it was the fact that you needed to pay to get in, in a city with so many free ones, what caused it to be even emptier. Taeyong liked it, it made him feel like it was his for a moment, even if there were other people  around . 

He reached a small bench near one of the greenhouses. It was  _ his  _ place. He left his bag on the floor and sat right next to it. He didn’t need the bench, but it was nice to know it was there in case insects started coming closer and he needed a way out. 

_ What did I miss? I feel like I’m missing something, _ Taeyong was going through his backpack, taking his notebook and some food off, leaving it all on the floor next to him.  _ Something else,  _ he said once he realized he hadn’t brought his water bottle. He could easily go out, buy some water, and get back in, but he didn’t need it, he would rather stay there than go out and face the chaotic outside again.

The whole thing was like a ritual more than anything else. He would arrive, take everything off his backpack, eat some of the food he brought that day, and then try to write or sketch something during a few hours, taking inspiration from his surrondings. He wasn’t going to lie, it was almost always the same: old people walking around, tourists taking pictures, and dozens of cats watching him from afar. It brought him some comfort, knowing everyone else was living their  lives , no one paying attention to what he was doing. 

  
  


He felt a grip on his ankles, as if it was pulling him down to some  place he wasn’t supposed to go  to . Maybe he had crossed the gates of hell after all, he definitely deserved it. But he hadn’t. He opened his eyes to his lover waking him up, a smile on his lips that Taeyong wanted to believe was made out of love and not something else. His lover’s dark hair almost covered his eyes, and his cheekbones were as sharp as the day Taeyong fell for him. 

“You fell asleep again,” Doyoung said when Taeyong finally was awake enough to listen to him.

He had been looking at the sky, wondering when it was going to start raining, hoping it would be soon, so he could  have  the garden all to himself. He was selfish like that, the garden was big enough to share it with multiple people, but he never liked sharing, and this time wasn’t going to be any different. He didn’t mind sharing it with Doyoung, though. 

Taeyong's eyes went back to the sky after getting a glimpse of Doyoung. He was laying under a  _ Ginkgo biloba _ , a tree that had been there for tons of years, he had researched it before, and it was about to start blooming as spring was coming around. He loved how nature kept going, it didn’t care what was going on around it, or under it to be more specific. Above the tree, the clouds were vying for the tree tops, just as his thoughts were vying for a moment of clarity. 

“You forgot this, I don’t want you walking around dehydrated.” 

Doyoung handed him Taeyong’s favorite water bottle, an ocean green one covered in stickers he had collected over the last few years. The bottle was filled to the top, to the point that some came out and wet Taeyong’s hand when he opened it to take a sip. The water was as cold as the rain that was about to start pouring, Taeyong knew the sky too well already to know they didn’t have much time before the clouds would start pouring down on them. It was always like that, nature had never given them enough time.

It was a relief for Taeyong that Doyoung’s eyes weren’t on him but on this couple that were all over each other under another tree. An oak tree, Taeyong recognized it. They looked like every couple that went to the garden, every other couple but them. Maybe it was because he had been with Doyoung for so long that he didn’t  need to be  all over him, or maybe it was because they didn’t need to do that in order to feel each other's company. 

“They look like they only have eyes for each other,” Doyoung seemed moved by what he was looking at, “like there’s nothing else around them, just love. But not any love, their love. Don’t you think?”

He turned to Taeyong, and the older didn’t have any other choice but to observe them as well. They looked exactly like how Doyoung was describing them, like there wasn’t anything else in the world but their partner. They were talking, saying things to each other through smiles that held the whole world. The words were floating around them, as if language itself only belonged to them, as if they were the only ones allowed to use it. And even if Taeyong tried  fervently  to hear what they were saying to each other, he couldn’t. He wondered if they could hear what Doyoung was telling him, if their love was as strong as this couple’s, if Doyoung and him had their own language only themselves could hear. 

“What do you think they are saying?” 

Doyoung had always been able to read his mind, he wasn’t surprised at all. Taeyong looked at the guy that was leaning on the tree, who was looking at his partner like the world depended on it, his guard was clearly down, seeking for comfort on his partners arms. Taeyong tried to read the guy’s lips, but the  latter  didn’t look like he was speaking a language Taeyong could understand. He didn’t need to, after all it was always the same. He was probably telling his lover how much he loved him, how he sometimes thought about God, but not that often, because he didn’t want to rob God’s time and he was also far away, and his lover was right by his side. 

The guy was smiling between every word, but with a smile that was pretty different than the one he had moments before, like he was smiling through sadness, or through pain. Maybe he was sad, but he was still telling his partner that he loved him, begging his lover to let him in, to hold him for a little longer, maybe aware of the rain that was about to come. 

“It’s like they are hoarding all the love in this world,” Doyoung joked, “maybe it’s good that he didn’t talk to God but his partner. It looks like one of those loves God would be jealous of, like one of those so unique everybody would be jealous of, but nobody would approve.”

Taeyong could see that, he could see gods tearing the earth apart to prevent them from being together, he could see wars being started because of how they looked at each other, but he could also see how they were perfect for each other, how they didn’t need nor care d about anything else. The rain could start pouring  down on them at that very  moment , Taeyong was sure they would  hav e just stayed there, lost in each other,  unaware  of what was going on around them. 

“They look so into each other,” Doyoung continued, “but their faces, god, look at their faces. They know it won’t last, they know their love isn’t as powerful as life itself. Look at how that dude’s heart is breaking, you can see it on his eyes. His lover is definitely telling him it won’t work out, maybe they’re calling it quits. Maybe their love was too intense, it just drained everything else. Or maybe it only drained one of them, and that’s why he looks heartbroken.”

The guy that wasn’t lying on the tree, the  one  with eyes that reminded Taeyong of the deep sea he sometimes read about, didn’t seem drained at all. He looked like he was overflowing with emotions, maybe too many of them. 

“ _ We thought our love was going to save us both, _ ” Doyoung continued as if he was the dark eyed guy, “ _ but we can’t be saved, I can’t be saved. I took everything from you, you need all of it back, you need to give it all to someone else. _ ”

Just as those words were coming out of Doyoung’s mouth, this couple started to change right before Taeyong’s eyes. He didn’t know if they looked like that from the start or not. He had been so mesmerized by the way they looked at each other that he didn’t pay attention to what he had before him . H e didn’t pay attention to how this small guy’s hair fell behind his ears just like Taeyong’s did, and how the grip on his boyfriend’s arm was as strong as the one Doyoung always complained about. 

“ _ It’s hard, but it’s the truth. We can’t fight it. We can think about what we had, about how good it was, but you can’t do it forever. You need to find a new source of life to hold on to, and it needs to be yourself. After all the 23rds we spent together, it’s April again, and it’s going to start raining again.” _

It’s April. Again. It was always April, there hadn’t been any differences in months. And it was about to start raining just like it did the day he left, the day Taeyong had to start going to gardens by himself and had to start getting his own coins, the day Taeyong was drained for the first time.

_ “And I took  _ _ every single drop _ _ from you, and now it’s all inside me, and  _ _ that  _ _ it’s not your fault, but I can’t hold it anymore. _ ”

That was it, that was the moment everything came crashing down  on  Taeyong. It all went down as  if  the biggest of storms was about to massacre everything on its way. Right before Taeyong's eyes, this guy that looked so much  like his boyfriend started to choke and water started coming out of him, as if his bones were filled with water. 

It was  at that very moment when he looked at Doyoung, who was beside him seconds ago, but he wasn’t there anymore. The grip Taeyong had had on Doyoung’s leg was now  holding  the grass under it. Doyoung wasn’t there, he had never been, he was standing meters away from him, now overflowing with water that was about to drown them all.

Taeyong looked around. The Botanical Garden had never been so small, it now looked like a small children pool, and the water was going up so fast nobody was going to survive. The thunderstorm started pouring down over all of them, and he knew he needed to stand up and get out of there, leaving that whole scenario behind. He knew he needed to move on for the first time. But it was Doyoung there, and it was him there, the same situation they went through a year ago, it was happening all over again. And Taeyong wished he could do something about it, he felt a knot forming in his throat, a scream that wanted to leave his body but  he couldn’t bring himself to produce it . He needed to save Doyoung from drowning even at his own cost, he didn’t care about saving himself, but there wasn’t a possibility to do so. 

He stayed there, water over his own torso now, watching how his lover was leaving him one more time, watching how he couldn’t do anything about it one more time, maybe he never will. 

He felt a grip on his ankles, as if it was pulling him down to somewhere he was supposed to go. Oh how he wished it was hell once and for all. But it wasn’t. He thought it might have been heaven, a long-haired guy was waking him up. His voice as sweet as honey was exactly what Taeyong needed to hear after the nightmare he had just woken up from. 

“It’s starting to rain,” the guy Taeyong had seen reading there multiple times said, “your notebook is going to get wet.”

The younger’s hands were still on Taeyong’s ankles, but took them away as soon as he landed his eyes on them. 

“I’m Donghyuck,” he said, giving Taeyong a hand, “let me help you stand up. You are going to catch a cold.” 

Taeyong was still holding on tightly to the grass beside him, raindrops starting to fall down on his face. He accepted Donghyuck’s hand and stood up, clearing his pants with his wet hands once he was standing.

“Thank you,” Taeyong said, still recovering from everything that had just happened. He picked up his notebook and his food, still untouched on the floor, and put them back into his bag. “I'm Taeyong,” he added when Donghyuck was already on the gates about to leave the garden. The younger turned around and gave him a smile. 

In the sky, a big dark cloud was covering everything Taeyong could see. It looked just like his heart but, this time, he wasn’t drowning, he was just getting wet, a little hope forming inside him, something warm growing where moments before there was an abism.

  
  
  


The Botanical Garden looks pretty asleep most of the time, only a few people going around. When the rain starts to pour in earnest over it, the ghosts remain, while everyone else can choose to leave. Taeyong, however, stays. 

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/_renjaune_)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.me/_renjaune_)


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